Hey Mac owners!

[telophase]

Now that I am officially a Mac owner again* I have a question for other Mac owners: what sort of software do you find essential and why? :)



* I don't participate in the OS wars, but I tend to prefer Macs. Had the PC solely because I was entering grad school and I could get what I needed for cheaper, but now with a virtual machine I can have the benefit of both OSes on one computer. Mind you, the last time I used Macs for longer than a couple of minutes at a time it was back in the days of OS9, before they got all feline in their names.

Comments

you may not need these but I do

[jinian]

Keynote! Cheaper and much, much better than Powerpoint for slide-style presentations. I used to say "it takes a little getting used to" but since Office screwed up their entire interface recently you'd have to do that if you wanted to use Powerpoint anyway!

FIJI (Fiji Is Just ImageJ) for unusual image formats and processing macros.

[solarbird]

I use a lot of the bundled software, honestly. I know most people find the contacts app woefully underpowered, but it seems okay for me. The Calendar and Mail apps are fine, Safari is a perfectly good browser but Firefox and Chrome are available if you want.

Huge numbers of artists I know do work in PaintTool SAI.

Adium is a good multiprotocol IM client.

iMovie actually is pretty good for editing video. It's not professional level, but it's not trying to be, and it works for things like my live video posting needs.

I do all my music stuff on my DAW, which is Linux based, so can't help you much there.

I hate Word and Excel, but I have to use them for various annoying reasons. Pages is nicer; I haven't tried Apple's spreadsheet application. (I want to move the data I have in Excel over to Google Docs spreadsheet, mostly so we stop keeping redundant copies of EVERYTHING.)

That's all I have.

[movingfinger]

Lightroom

[lab]

Scrivener - the ultimate writing/research/organizing program
Wunderlist - todo manager und task manager, allows shared lists
Day One - neat journaling app, really helps me to write more and better
Amazon Kindle Reading app - allows me to read epubs on here and import my kindle library
Mindnode (Pro) - Allows to do mindmaps (I use it mostly for teaching and communal mindmaps)
Prezi Desktop - Prezi, for desktop!
tumblita - tumblr client
Daisy Disk and Broom - organizing, HD cleaning apps (esp daisydisk is shiny)
Break Time and Time Cop - time management apps
Yoink - nead little app that helps with drag and drop issues and different desktops
Growl - see what your computer is doing
Dropbox - mobile private and shared file storage
FlareFighter, Free Memory, Battery Squeezer - system optimizing apps, do what it says on the tin
1Password - spendy but brilliant password manager
Mendely Desktop - if you are in science

*wears her shiny mac tinhat proudly*

I forgot!

[lab]

F.lux - turns your screen from steely blue at night into a light more adequate for the time of day.

[green_knight]

I am in love with Storyist - it's build on the same principle as Scrivener, only *much* better suited to my brain. I'd still write in a text processor (I quite like Pages), but for organising stories and keeping track of everything Storyist rocks.

Also, I found a rare and nasty bug, reported it, and two days later I had a beta version with the bug fixed in my hands. Now *that's* customer service.

I've just downloaded - not tried yet, but I've tried part of the app and loved it - image processing software called Great Photo Pro, which looks very promising, and is currently on sale. (The Big Aperture model works exactly as advertised, so I decided to splash out.)

[myrialux.livejournal.com]

The list I sent to my brother when he got his MacBook Pro. Posting it here so people know most or all of this will be going on your machine anyway. :)

Perian (http://www.perian.org/)
Allows QuickTime Player (and thus I think iTunes) to play a bunch of formats it otherwise couldn't. Free. Installs as a System Preferences pane and a QuickTime plugin, so you never need to actually run it.

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)
For the things Perian can't let you play. Free. Standalone app.

Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/)
Free DVD ripping and encoding. It'll need VLC in order to do the best ripping, but it doesn't need to be running at the same time.

1Password (http://agilebits.com/onepassword)
Stores all your passwords.

Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/)
A place "in the cloud" to store files. 1Password can sync to it, keeping your Mac and phone up-to-date.

ClamXav (http://www.clamxav.com/)
Free virus scanner. Don't forget to make sure virus definitions are set to auto-update, and enable the Sentry on your Downloads folder.

Adium (http://adium.im/)
Free instant messenger. If you decide you need one on your Mac, that's the one to use.

Skype (http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home)
Duh. Also free.

Growl (http://growl.info/)
Another free System Pref Pane. Allows apps to post visual and audio notifications for various items. Handbrake, 1Password, Adium and others can optionally use it if installed. Not strictly necessary, but kinda handy.

Max (http://sbooth.org/Max/)
Free CD ripper. Gives a bit more control than iTunes. Hasn't been updated in ages, but works fine anyway.

Transmission (http://www.transmissionbt.com/)
Free bittorrent client.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

Rather than give you the laundry list here, I'll point to my iUseThis profile, which is more complete and comes with handy download links. (I see that I agree with myrialux on most things.)

Scrivener is the one I absolutely can't live without. Before they released the Windows version, I knew at least a dozen writers who switched to Macs just so they could use it.

I know a lot of web devs love Coda, but I've never cottoned to it. Textmate, Firebug, and Transmit get the job done.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

.. and I forgot the frakkin' link. Baby brain. http://osx.iusethis.com/user/sleary

[madspark.livejournal.com]

I use a perhaps weird set of software:

Audacity for audio conversions

TextMate for text editing -- a great programmer's editor!

Adium of course, for integrated messaging

AppZapper for more comprehensive un-installations

Chrome for web

Fetch for FTP

Pages and the other Mac suite for the relevant work.

Minecraft, World of Goo, Osmos, Plants vs Zombies, Angry Birds, Crayon Physics -- for killing time

Eagle and MCN Gerber Viewer for PCB work :)

[chomiji]

So TextMate is really good? I'd be using it mainly for HTML.

I've been trying to find something for Mac that I would like as well as I like NoteTab for Windows. (I use Windows at work, Mac at home.) I see that TextMate lets you do search and replace on line endings - that's something I value.

(My other choice, I guess, would be to run NoteTab under some kind of emulator.)

[madspark.livejournal.com]

I would think an editor under an emulator would drive me crazy -- it always adds a bit of lag to interactions. I really like TextMate, and I've used it for a wide range of development editing tasks. I'm not really a power user of editors, so I can't speak to the fancier features, but one thing I do like is how it has a project drawer that lists all the files you are working with, or that are in the parent folder, or however.

[mothoc.livejournal.com]

Toby and NotYouSteph pretty well covered everything. The only thing I can add is that I use VMWare Fusion 4 to run Windows 7 in which I run necessary Windows-only applications. I do consider it pretty essential.

[madspark.livejournal.com]

Aha of course, yes, except that I use Parallels. But gotta have a VM for Windows.

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

Bento. Forever and always.

[tempest-strife.livejournal.com]

VMware. I play Windows in a Window. Xibit.